October 28, 2013

Now This Is Embarrassing...But Not For The Obvious Reason

A Pittsburgh-based partner at law firm Reed Smith lost his cool on Twitter last week, and lashed out at an account he thought represented the Supreme Court but was in fact a well-established blog.

The Twitter account has since been deleted and the law firm issued a statement that the matter is being reviewed internally.

Which is all well and good, I suppose. But what exactly happened?

From the Above The Law blog:

It appears that [attorney Steven M.] Regan, mistaking the Twitter feed of SCOTUSblog for an official Twitter feed of the U.S. Supreme Court, wanted to weigh in on the Court’s recent decision to hear a challenge to EPA regulations about greenhouse gas emissions. He originally tweeted: “@SCOTUSblog – Don’t screw up this like ACA. No such thing as greenhouse gas. Carbon is necessary for life.” After SCOTUSblog tweeted back “Intelligent life?”, Regan dropped the F-bomb. (If you’d like, you can read related tweets over here.)

Regan actually tweeted, "Go f@ck yourself and die."

Which is more embarrassing, I wonder? Mistaking the SCOTUSblog for the Supreme Court or a partner at a prestigious downtown lawfirm making an ass out of himself by using profanity on a completely public forum or...(now wait for it)...using that profanity in that mistaken tweet by communicating to the world his near-total misunderstanding of climate science?